


For Want of Love

by atsammy



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 00:44:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/680744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atsammy/pseuds/atsammy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the month since their deal was struck in an abandoned library, it was a rare event indeed when Belle and her true love could eat a meal together without interruption.  Queens and dead crickets and blonde heroes were not part of the plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Want of Love

**Author's Note:**

> Set during and immediately after episode 2x10, "The Cricket Game."

When Prince James and his two companions, one of whom she assumed was Snow White though it had been a decade before the curse that she had last seen the princess, arrived, Belle faded into the background with annoyance. In the month that had passed since her first invitation to lunch, she and Rumpel had yet to make it through a meal together without some sort of interruption. The Queen’s interruption the week before, when they had finally gotten around to Granny’s for hamburgers, had been the worst of them all. Belle had not seen the woman since her last visit to the basement cell months earlier, but the thought of her made an unhealthy panic well up inside Belle, one that she would never forgive the woman for.

The blonde woman, young and unfamiliar, was at that moment accusing Rumpel of murder, or at least setting the Queen up to take the fall for one, and it took everything that Belle had not to react. He had promised her that he would leave the Queen alone, after the wraith failed and she came back to him. He had promised her, and she knew that as much as he wanted to hurt the woman, would not have minded one bit seeing her suffer, he didn’t do this. She edged forward just enough to brush her fingers lightly against his side, and was relieved to see his grip on his walking stick lessen. 

She watched, ignoring the glances that Snow White sent her way, as Rumpel had the blonde woman look into a woven circle. She was not surprised when the circle showed the Queen, and thought that that would be the end of it so that she could have her picnic. The motley crew turned to leave, dog in tow, when the blonde turned and stalked back to the counter where Rumpel was stowing the circle.

“How do we know that you didn’t do something to make it look like it was Regina? Your… magic, or whatever? Cora did that, back there, with that knight. Lancelot. Can’t you do that?”

“Well, Ms. Swan,” Rumpel drawled, his voice belying the tension that Belle could see set in his shoulders. “I could have done so, I suppose, though I have never used magic to disguise myself. Ask your parents, if you must, but whatever I did, I did. Besides, I have an alibi.”

The blonde’s eyebrows raised in disbelief. “An alibi? Who in this town would give you an alibi?”

Belle started forward, but a tiny motion, just the barest movement of one of Rumpel’s fingers on his cane gave her pause, and so she waited.

“Do you know what time the good doctor was killed, Ms. Swan?”

“Dr. Whale said between eight and ten last night. Regina was seen there about nine.”

“Ah. Then yes. I was home, watching a movie. It didn’t end until nearly midnight.”

“And you want me to believe that you were home, alone, watching a movie, and therefore you had nothing to do with this?”

“Emma…” Belle heard the prince start, and she moved back out of the shadows.

“Believe what you like, but he wasn’t alone.”

This Emma Swan looked a bit like a fish, Belle thought unkindly, as she gaped at her. Prince James had a small smile on his face while Snow White just looked contemplative. 

“We were at his house from the morning until after midnight.”

“She wanted to see the ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies, so we made a day of it. The extended edition,” Rumpel added, as the Prince just bit back a grin and shook his head.

“’Lord of the…’ What?”

“It took the entire day, as I’m sure you know. They are long movies, and there were three of them. We started…” Belle pursed her lips, and tilted her head to meet Rumpel’s gaze. His face was devoid of expression, but she could see the hint of amusement in his eyes, displacing the tension that had been there. “Before lunch?”

He nodded in agreement. “Around 11, I believe.”

“Yes. Around 11.” She was becoming more comfortable with the measures of time in this world, but the twelve hour segments confused her at times. 

The Prince nodded shortly, and rested his hand on Emma Swan’s shoulder. “He has an alibi, then,” he mused. “We should go; Regina is not going to be easy to deal with.”

“Right. Right, then.” 

Belle felt an unhealthy amount of vindication as she watched the three intruders leave the shop, particularly when the blonde woman paused on her way out the door to look back at her and Rumpel, a confused expression on her face.

Beside her, Rumpel let out a heavy sigh, and she turned her attention back to him. He was looking at her with a bemused expression, one hand tightly wrapped around the handle of his cane. 

“We will one day make it through a meal together without interruption,” she vowed, stepping close to him and covering his hand with her own. So far, they had only managed to do so when they hid themselves away in Rumpel’s house. Her own tiny apartment above the library was prone to Ruby stopping by, doing her best to apologize for chaining Belle against her will.

He turned his hand under hers and lifted her hand to his lips. When he lowered it, he didn’t let go, but searched her face with his eyes. Whatever he saw there made him look away briefly before meeting her gaze.

“I had no role in the death of the cricket,” he said simply, and her heart dropped. 

Belle tugged on the hand that held hers, pulling him off balance to end up flush against her. She pressed her free hand against his cheek, brushing her thumb across his mouth before sliding her hand to tangle her fingers in his hair. She stood up on her toes and pressed their mouths together in a soft kiss. When she pulled away, she looked him straight in the eye and replied, “I never thought for even a second that you did.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The next day, not long after noon, she leaned against the railing overlooking Storybrooke’s small harbor. She was to meet Rumpel there for lunch; he would be bringing food from Granny’s for them to share at one of the picnic tables that dotted the park beyond the boardwalk. They’d only made the plan at the last minute that morning, as they parted ways on Rumpel’s front porch.

She bent forward, enough to rest her chin on her hands as she looked out over the water, her thoughts settling on that morning when she’d woken in the early hours. Rumpel had been on his back, one arm around her shoulder and the other resting on her hip as she lay against him. Their relationship was new enough, the intimate aspect of it, that she still occasionally felt… not ashamed, exactly, but… something. Something she couldn’t describe, about the way she was with Rumpel despite the fact that they weren’t married. 

She knew his reputation in the town: a mix of his time as Rumpelstiltskin back home and the nearly thirty years here, a caricature of himself. She knew that the townspeople thought that she had been coerced into the relationship, that he had not given her much choice. Very few people outside of the Marchlands had known that she’d gone with Rumpel to save her home; fewer still knew who she was. Her appearance in town, after the curse broke, had gone unnoticed for nearly a week, and it wasn’t until her father had tried to destroy her memories that her connection to Rumpel had become public knowledge. No one understood that she loved him, in spite of, and in some ways, because of who he was, both back in their home and here. She knew that they would never see him the way that she did. They would never truly believe that she was with him willingly, that there was absolutely no pressure by him, for anything. He was willing to let her go so that she could be happy, even if it meant that he was forever alone.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_That first evening, they walked to his home from the pawn shop hand in hand. They hadn’t said much else after she informed him in no uncertain words that she would stay with him. She had once said forever, and even though she left, she always hoped to return to him. If the Queen had not abducted her a week after she’d left, she would have. There was so much that they needed to talk about, so much to explain. Thirty years. It was almost unbelievable, how long it had been. But they had time now, time to figure out if they could go anywhere, despite the love that shown in his eyes._

_He made dinner that night, a dish that he called “pasta.” They ate quietly, or, at least, she did. He spent as much time watching her as he did eating, and she could feel her face heat under his gaze. Even with the dress he had given her in his shop and the comb for her hair, she felt unclean and, well, rumpled. When they were done, he bade her to stay seated with a cup of tea while he cleaned up from their meal. When he was done, and her tea gone, he took her on a tour of his house, and she had the same sense of loneliness there that she had had in his castle. It was clear that he had been the only one to spend time there, and though she knew that he was not a man to have friends, it pained her to know that he’d spent the intervening years as alone as the ones before their deal._

_He showed her to a rather lovely guest room, and at her rather embarrassed admission, demonstrated the function of the bathing room. She saw the anger that crossed his face at the realization of just how little she had been given during her imprisonment, but she also saw him force it down. He left her there, retreating to his own room for the evening._

_The shower was an amazing adventure. She had no idea that the water could be hot, or that the soaps in this world could be more that the thin white bars from the hospital. Warm, and cleaner than she could remember ever feeling, she curled up on the large bed. This world, now that she was beginning to experience it, was amazing. Hot water from the wall, chamber pots that emptied themselves, matrasses and pillows as soft as a cloud. As she lay there, the events of the day overwhelmed her, and in her exhaustion she fell asleep within minutes._

_The Moon was higher in the sky when she woke, bolting upright in the bed. The thick blanket slipped down as she wheezed, her heart racing. She was cold, so cold, and even as she pulled the blanket back up around her she shivered. She lay back down, the blankets pulled up to her chin and her knees tucked up. Long minutes passed, and the cold stayed. When she closed her eyes, the faint noises of the house faded into the mechanical noises of the hospital, and the panic that had first woken her returned._

_She stayed there for a while longer, until she determined that she would not be able to sleep again. She came to a decision, though she was very uncertain about it. It took her even longer to convince herself to go against all modes of decorum, but she got out of bed and made her way quietly to her door. It took a deep breath for courage before she opened it and stepped out into the hallway, and yet another at Rumpel’s bedroom door before she knocked quietly on it._

_It opened slightly at her touch, and she realized that he had left it unlatched. She pushed it a little wider, and in the light of the Moon through his curtains, saw him move on the bed._

_“Belle? What’s wrong?”_

_His voice was quiet, scratchier than she was used to, and as she stood in the doorway with one hand on the door, he sat up._

_“Belle?”_

_“I can’t get warm,” she said softly, clutching at the wooden frame. “I close my eyes, and I’m back there, and I’m so cold.”_

_He said nothing for a long moment, and she rocked back on her feet, about to head back to her empty room. It had been a silly thought, really. A silly, inappropriate hope, brought on by exhaustion and fear and the strangeness of this new world._

_“Would…” His voice, a bit strangled, stopped her. “Would you like to stay here, tonight?”_

_Her response was to step through the door, shutting it firmly but quietly behind her. As she walked to the bed, larger than the one in her room though not by much, she watched him move carefully over, leaving her the space where he had been lying._

_When she lay down again, it was warm from his body heat, and whatever it was inside of her that felt frozen when she was alone began to melt. The pillow under her head smelled faintly of his soaps, and she felt him settle down beside her. A quick glance to her left showed a bit more than a foot of space between the, but she could feel the warmth of him beside her as well. She had no idea if she would be able to sleep there, beside a man for the first time in her life, but it felt right, and it would be restful, in a strange sort of way, if sleep never came. And she was warm._

_The blankets shifted some time later, and she blinked open her eyes. She’d started to relax and doze off, and she hadn’t even realized it. She moved, resettling herself and closed her eyes._

_“I’m sorry, Belle.”_

_His words, when they came, were quiet, so quiet that she almost thought she had dreamt them._

_She thought about responding, considered many possible responses, but in the end, she stayed silent, instead turning her head to look towards him in the dark to prove that she was awake. He was nearly mirroring her pose, though his arms rested above the blankets, crossed across his stomach. He was focused on the ceiling._

_“I shouldn’t have believed her. She told me that you were dead, that… that you’d gone home and they’d thought you… defiled. Cursed, for your time with me, or for breaking the deal. That they’d beaten you until you escaped the only way you had left. I looked for you, but only after that, and when I only found a pauper’s grave, I should have realized. I never conceived that she would have taken you.”_

_She turned onto her side, and in the moonlight saw a glint in his eye even as he blinked._

_“You spent all that time, all those wasted years, in a cell, because I turned you away.”_

_Movement drew her gaze to his hands, and Belle watched as they clenched together. She reached one pale hand out to rest her fingers to against his, stroking the back of his hand her thumb until the tension released and he covered her hand with his other one._

_“I’m sorry, too,” she replied in a whisper. “I didn’t understand what would happen. I didn’t know she was the Queen, and I was foolish.”_

_Tomorrow, she decided. Tomorrow, she would tell him how the Queen had captured her, and the unending days of lines on the wall, and of the man with the hook who had promised her freedom. Of the way the Queen would visit sometimes, to gloat even as her kingdom was crumbling around her. It was only right that she return the honesty that she demanded of him._

_She sat up enough to slide closer to him, the movement awkward for she had never shared a bed with anyone, not since she was a small child. She pressed her cheek against his shoulder, but froze when he pulled back. Before she could get out a mortified apology, he let go of her hand and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her gently to lie against his chest. He recaptured her hand, and held it against his heart._

_Tears came to Belle’s eyes, lying there feeling his heart beat under her palm. They trickled across her face to pool on Rumpel’s night shirt, but she made no move to wipe them away. The arm that was around her tightened and she shifted to a slightly more comfortable angle against him. There, in the warmth of his bed, she slept._

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She didn’t register the small, intimate smile that had graced her lips at the memory of that night until it fell away at words from behind her.

“I don’t know you.”

Self-consciously, she straightened up and schooled her face to one of polite disinterest before she turned around. 

The blonde woman, Emma, was standing a few feet away, her hands half shoved in her trouser pockets. Rumpel had told her over their delayed lunch the day before that this woman was the daughter of Snow White and her Prince, and in this encounter Belle supposed she could see it in the way she stood. So like her father. 

“No. You don’t,” she agreed, leaning back against the railing. 

Clearly, Emma was expecting her to say more, if the uncomfortable shift in her stance was anything to go by. But she said nothing, and instead met her gaze without a flinch.

“People don’t come to Storybrooke,” Emma added after a very long moment.

“No, I suppose they don’t,” Belle agreed, tilting her head slightly. “And yet you are here.”

She wasn’t expecting Emma to laugh, or smile at that, but the woman did both without relaxing her stance. “I suppose you are right about that.” She stood there for another moment before shrugging and walking forward to lean against the railing beside Belle. “So you have been here the whole time? Why haven’t I seen you around?”

Belle looked at her and contemplated her answer. There was no guile in Emma’s eyes, just simple curiosity, but Belle knew that she could not give her the answer she was looking for.

“The Queen has her own methods of dealing with her enemies,” she said in the end, turning to look out over the water once more. 

They stood there in silence, listening to the wavelets splashing against the rocks below, until the moving bit on the time-keeper Rumpel had given to her had moved another five marks. He would be there soon; if he did nothing else he always strove to be on time. 

“You know… Mr. Gold is not exactly the nicest guy around.”

This, Belle could tell immediately, was Emma’s purpose in seeking her out, and she pursed her lips in response but said nothing. 

“He’s got a temper, and he’s violent. He is definitely not what he appears to be.”

“I know what he is, Ms. Swan. Better than anyone else in this world, except… Well, better than anyone here. I know exactly who he is.” It was true. Even in this world, where his magic was unstable and his appearance was not as fearsome and startling, there was much about him that had not changed in the years since she had left the Dark Castle. She was finding, however, that none of it mattered. He was trying to be better, for her, much as the Queen had seemed to be trying for the young boy, even though the façade was crumbling. As long as he continued to try, she had promised him forever, and she meant it.

“I’m just saying. There is a reason why he has no friends, just a town full of people who can’t decide who is worse, him or Regina.”

To that, Belle smiled despite herself. It was enough for her to turn away from the water to face Emma once more. Her smile turned secretive as Emma moved in turn.

“I’m not friends with Mr. Gold,” Belle said simply.

Emma’s eyebrows rose far on her forehead. “Really? Twelve hours of movies and dinner with the guy, and you say you aren’t friends?”

Belle laughed, feeling lighter than she had since the woman had shown up. “I’m not friends with Mr. Gold,” she repeated, and paused for dramatic effect. “I’m in love with Rumpelstiltskin.”

The woman gaped at her, looking all the more like a fish out of its water. Clearly, despite the unsubtle warnings, that had not been the response she had expected Belle to give, any more than anyone else in the town thought that Belle could know her own mind.

“And that is something that I will always cherish.”

Belle bit her lower lip to keep from laughing when Emma spun around so fast that she had to grab onto the railing to stay upright. Rumpel was standing a few feet away, one hand resting on his cane and the other carrying a bag of food. Rumpel was smirking at Emma, but when his eyes returned to Belle his expression softened. 

She walked the few steps to him and took the bag from him. With her other hand, she reached up to touch his cheek, then his neck, before rising on her toes to kiss him gently. His lips parted against hers just as she pulled away, and he narrowed his eyes at her playfully. 

“You’re late,” she chided, dropping her hand to clasp his.

“I think you’ll find, my dear, that I am here precisely at the time we agreed to meet.”

She shrugged and laughed, a happy sound as she swung their joined hands lightly. “But I was here twenty minutes ago, and you were not. Therefore, you… are late.”

He rolled his eyes, and behind her she heard a muttered, “Seriously?”

Belle had forgotten momentarily about her unplanned companion. She turned back without losing her gentle grip on Rumpel’s hand. 

“I wish you a good day, your Highness,” she said to Emma, dropping to a perfect curtsy as was due a Princess, while keeping hold of both Rumpel’s hand and the bag that contained their meal.

Emma was still sputtering behind them when they passed out of earshot and onto their lunch.


End file.
